Vlll PREFACE. 



was the locality which Mr. Bolton intended to indicate, and thus infer 

 that this North-American bird has only been met with on its own 

 ground. Be this as it may, other naturalists besides Lewin fully be- 

 lieved that it had occurred in England ; and a specimen shot at 

 Whitby at the beginning of the present year, and placed in the hands 

 of Mr. Higgins, who fully describes it in the July number (Zool. 2496), 

 renders the older accounts perfectly credible, and entitles them, in my 

 opinion, to be regarded as satisfactory. Mr. Higgins was not aware 

 of the species, and naturalists are greatly indebted to Mr. Bird for de- 

 termining its name (Zool. 2527). 



The volume for 1848 contained a record (Zool. 2067) by Mr. Curt- 

 ler, of the occurrence of the Summer or Tree Duck (Dendronessa 

 sponsa) at Tenbury, in Worcestershire. This interesting announcement 

 did not seem to attract the attention it deserved, probably from a sus- 

 picion that some mistake might have occurred in naming the species. 

 In the present volume, Mr. Hulke, of Deal, records (Zool. 2353) that 

 two male specimens of this beautiful North-American duck were shot 

 on the 6th and 8th of November, 1848, on the coast of Kent, — one 

 at Walmer, the other at Marsh Side, Chislet ; and Mr. Newton states 

 (Zool. 2382) that two males and a female were killed at Livermere, 

 near Thetford, on the 24th of October, in the same year, and that 

 some others were subsequently seen : this gentleman, however, sug- 

 gests that they had escaped from a preserve, a remark which calls 

 from Mr. Hulke (Zool. 2421) the observation that the Kentish speci- 

 mens were shot within two hundred yards of the sea, that they were 

 in perfect plumage and were not pinioned. The occurrence of this 

 remarkably conspicuous duck on the southern coast, between the dates 

 mentioned above, namely, October 24th and November 8th, 1848, was 

 noticed anonymously in several local papers ; but I concluded, and, as 

 it now appears, somewhat too hastily, that a wrong name was assigned 

 to the species. It would therefore seem that certain individuals of 

 this duck made their appearance on the south-eastern coast at the 

 usual migrating period of the duck tribe ; but whether they were spon- 

 taneous visitors from their far distant home, or mere escapes, it will 

 perhaps be impossible to determine. 



